With a nervous scoff, Modak shook his head. His eyes were darting around the room nervously and his breathing was heavy. “No, no, it’s nothing like that, I’m just—I think I’m having a panic attack?”

  “Okay, shit, that’s not good, uhm …” Ryan pulled his bag from his back and looked for something inside, soon pulling out a small notebook. “Silvia drew this last night. It’s just a sketch made with pencil, but it apparently still has a small effect.”

  The page that Ryan was holding out was a drawing of a mountain with the morning sun’s rays shooting past the trees’ crowns. Just looking at it seemed to calm down Modak’s breathing, and he briefly closed his eyes. “That … really did help a little. I think.” Modak let out a long breath as he opened his eyes and continued to take in the magical calmness of the sketch in front of him. “Sorry, I’ve just been really nervous about making sure that everything works out later. We’ve been fine-tuning the last few things all morning, but I’m still not sure if it’s actually all perfect yet.”

  With a scoff, Ryan pushed the notebook with the sketch onto Modak’s chest. “It doesn’t need to be perfect. You’ve been working on this for a few weeks; the fact you have something to show in the first place is an absolute miracle.”

  “The tech itself is really pretty simple,” the orc pointed out.

  “If you can explain to me how it works and I understand it, I’ll give that one to you, but I honestly doubt it.” Ryan placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Just do your best. What’s the worst that can go wrong?”

  Modak grimaced slightly. “I mean … a mass of toy bricks could be hurled at onlookers.”

  Taking a step back with a confused expression, Ryan furrowed his brow. “Uh … What?”

  “How much did I tell you about what I’m working on?”

  “Not much at all; you’ve been sneaky about it the whole time.”

  Modak rubbed his neck as he started thinking about how to best explain things. “So … Actually, let me just …” The orc turned around toward the cyclops who had stopped Ryan earlier. “Marge, is everything set up and ready to go?”

  The cyclops nodded and held a thumbs-up toward Modak, who pushed Ryan toward the front of the tent. “Okay, great. Wait outside for a second; we’ll fold up the tent real quick.”

  Curious and more confused than ever, Ryan stepped out and waited in front of the tent. There were a few other people walking around, wondering what this still-veiled project was about. And then, a moment later, the tarps of the magical tent rolled up with a snapping sound. The bars holding the whole thing up folded down, and the tent that had been keeping the whole project covered soon disappeared into a wooden box. And what was visible there instead were a number of speakers lined up in a semicircle in front of a large cube made entirely of small plastic bricks.

  In front of Ryan was a tablet on a small stand, displaying a playlist. Each song was titled something like “Castle,” “Plane,” “Robot,” or the like. Different things that you would usually build from these kinds of bricks.

  “Alright, so … While we have been graciously given a spot for a final showcase later on at the central stage, for now, we would like the visitors of the fair to experience the basics firsthand,” Modak explained, smiling anxiously. He was clutching the notebook that Ryan had given to him earlier tightly. “I think, without further ado, just … play one of the songs that catches your eye.”

  Not having to be told twice, Ryan looked through the songs. In the end, he picked “Robot,” and before he knew it, the speakers started up with a rhythmic pattern that sounded a lot like the beeps and boops that Ryan instinctively connected with something like a server or control room. Something sci-fi.

  He watched as the cube of bricks was slowly pulled apart, piece by piece. The small plastic bricks sorted themselves, and as Ryan looked over to Modak confusedly, he just saw the orc grow more anxious as more parts of the song came in. The bricks quickly flew around the area encircled by the speakers, constructing a robot as tall as the cyclops standing next to Modak. As the song continued, the bricks repositioned themselves, making the robot take different poses while doing different basic movements that reminded Ryan of what you would see from cartoons or comics.

  By the time the electronic song ended, the bricks had rearranged themselves back into that cube from before. And Ryan noticed a crowd that had formed behind him, curiously trying to see what was going on.

  Modak cleared his throat as he was pushed forward by Marge and began to speak to the crowd. “Our project is, the, uhm … Synthetic Chant System, or SCS in short. Reminiscent of the instrument-based magic of bardic mages, we use the rhythmic nature of music to cast a precise levitation spell,” Modak explained, looking over to Marge, who just had the biggest, most excited grin. “However, what is important to note is that the source does not come from a magic-user. I created all the tracks you will hear here today by myself on simple computer software. The music is then written on a crystal tape as a mana wavelength, which is then again split off the tape and transformed into the final spell you see in front of you.”

  Slowly but surely, the people in the crowd began to understand what Modak was trying to say. Some of them even seemed to be mages of the Magic Tower themselves, and were just staring at him in disbelief, as Modak finished the introduction to his project. “Using this system as a base, I believe it is possible to create a myriad of new ways to cast spells, ways that even regular people can use. I myself have a disorder where my body rejects all mana, and yet I was able to create this. Right now, it is only used to play with toy bricks, but imagine if you could use any spells that have been almost impossible to reproduce through technology, just with a press of a button. If you allow me to be so blunt …” Modak took a long, deep breath. “I believe that this is the way that we can put true magic into the hands of every single person in this world.”

  Ryan just stared at his friend as the crowd behind him began to clap, impressed. He stepped to the side, letting the next person approach the tablet. While Ryan was still just silent, someone played “Castle,” and a medieval melody started to play as the bricks rearranged themselves into the form of a castle, with small toy figures walking around inside of it, making it lively and exciting. Particularly kids were quickly crowding around, dragging their parents along. And before anyone knew it, the stall had drawn the largest crowd in the area. Even people from other stalls abandoned their posts to come take a look, discussing what they were seeing and the impact that this could have.

  “Modak …” Ryan stared at his friend, though Modak seemed nothing but relieved right now. He was sitting down on a chair at the side of his stall and was laughing nervously.

  “That went better than I thought,” he said with a broad smile, proudly showing off his tusks. “What do you think?”

  “What do I— Dude, you figured out how to synthesize magic! What do you think I think?!”

  “I guess that means you think it’s pretty cool?”

  Ryan let out a loud laugh and held out his hand. Modak, his smile still not letting up, took the hand and stood, and Ryan congratulated his friend. “You’ve done something absolutely crazy there, man.”

  Modak laughed as he felt Ryan’s encouragement. “Thanks. I just hope that the Tower’s mages think the same. I know that Alicia liked the idea; otherwise, she wouldn’t have given me a spot during the main event later, but you never know what kind of complaints those old farts could have.”

  The orc glanced back nervously at Marge, who chuckled lightly. “Don’t worry; I won’t tell anyone you said that.”

  “Either way, man, I can’t believe you were able to do something like that,” Ryan pointed out, looking over to the bricks that were still actively rearranging themselves. “You’ll be able to do so much good with this technology.”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Special

  What’s going on over here?” An exhausted Runar, who had just gotten a stern talking-to from Mary, pushed his way through the crowd of people. Mary was following closely, though her eyes were curiously landing on all the other nearby stalls as well. Since everyone was standing around a particular lot, everything else was free and you had a good view of whatever they were trying to present, though even the people manning those stalls seemed curious about what everyone was looking at.

  Before long, after pushing farther through the crowd, Runar and Mary at least managed to hear what was happening. A seafarer’s tune was being played, and people were loudly exclaiming their amusement and joy at what they were witnessing.

  With a click of his tongue, Runar slipped his hand under his jacket and wrote a rune with his finger. A piece of paper fell to the ground, quickly taking the form of a small mouse that was rushing through the crowd, dodging past their feet. The paper mouse perked up its head once it got to the front, and through its “eyes,” Runar was able to see the plastic bricks in the form of a ship floating on waves of even more plastic bricks. Immediately, Runar was trying to figure out what exactly it was about this that excited everyone so much. It seemed to be just some kind of simple auditory telekinesis spell, nothing more. Of course, there were some unique parts about it, but it wasn’t anything all too special. At least, it wasn’t special enough to justify a crowd like this.

  While Runar was trying to analyze the system through the eyes of the paper mouse, he noticed that the small familiar was suddenly picked up off the ground. Ryan had picked it up and was staring at it, then saying, “Just come through to the front instead of doing stuff like this; Modak can explain how it works if you want to know.”

  Taken aback, Runar tried to peek over the heads of the people in front of him, soon seeing Ryan standing there and looking toward him. By squeezing by the side, Runar and Mary were soon able to get into the stall, where they could not only see the magic from up close but could even hear how it worked directly from Modak.

  “So, you made this?” Runar asked, cupping his chin curiously. “I guess this was the project you mentioned to me about storing auditory magic?”

  The orc smiled lightly and shook his head. Because of the overwhelmingly positive response, all of the stress that he had felt earlier had just melted away, at least temporarily. “No, this is completely synthesized magic.”

  Runar closed his eyes and laughed for a few moments. “Synthetic magic, sure, good one.”

  Ryan threw the paper mouse back over to his uncle. “He’s telling the truth, you know? It’s not storing anything.”

  Stopping in his track, Runar opened his eyes again, looking at the orc with a suspicious frown. “Are you serious? That’s not possible; you need the mechanics and control of a physical body to be able to do something like that,” he asserted. “I guess it’s possible to get results that are similar to that of certain spells through magical engineering, but this isn’t that. A regular spell is being cast through bardic magic.”

  Hearing how critical Runar was, Mary hit him on the arm. “Oh, what do you know? Stop being so bothersome.”

  Ryan grinned. “I know he looks like a good-for-nothing, but Runar was actually a prodigy that entered the Magic Tower at … what was it, fifteen?”

  Narrowing his eyes, Runar looked back at his nephew. “Fourteen, actually.”

  Modak looked at Ryan nervously, glancing over at Mary in the process. “Erm … does your mother …”

  “Oh, yeah, don’t worry; I told her last night. She doesn’t know everything, but we’ll fill the rest in when it comes up,” Ryan explained, then turned back toward his mother. “So, yeah, Runar actually does know quite a lot about magic.”

  “Yes, which, again, means that I know for a fact it’s not possible to synthesize magic. Because of the nature of rune magic, which is able to be expressed even by people with little magic if they know exactly what to do, I studied this sort of process while preparing for even my First Circle thesis.” Runar crossed his arms, glancing over at the machines. “So, what are you doing to make this happen, then? Are you using a Technomancer’s mana as a conduit?”

  Modak frowned lightly. “Are you accusing me of fabricating all of this right now? I’ll have you know that this is all genuine. You can check the mana batteries that we’re using; they’re the standard purified mana containers that are used for any magical engineering process.”

  “Fine, then convince me. How does this whole thing work?”

  The orc let out a long groan. “Fine. To simplify the process, I altered the original code that translated soundwaves into mana waves to instead give it a three-dimensional pattern that’s adjusted to the thickness of the mana tape I’m using, to account for the multidimensionality of spell circuitry. That pattern is then placed on that mana tape through an extremely high-frequency mana emitter, which I altered to imbue the more-malleable qualities of aura into the mana in the process. The mana is then released from the tape and translated back into soundwaves within the speakers, and in the process are imbued with the corrected mana patterns, which, due to the effects of the infused aura qualities, are able to perfectly fuse into the physical sound vibrations.”

  Runar, whose face had been smug when Modak started talking, continued to drop more and more as he listened. “That’s … all? That sounds so simple, but …” His foot began to tap on the ground. “… It could actually work if … and also if … No, but in that case, you would need—”

  “If you want, I can show you the papers that I wrote. All the data,” Modak said, crossing his arms, and Runar immediately nodded.

  “Please do, because if you can actually mechanically manipulate mana in this way, then”—Runar grinned lightly—“our family found itself a true prodigy.”

  The two went off to a table in the back, where Modak quickly went to show Runar all the documents, leaving Ryan and his mother alone again. Mary was just staring at Runar, confused.

  “So … he worked for the Magic Tower?”

  Ryan shrugged. “I don’t know about ‘worked for.’ I think it’s a bit more complicated than that. The Aglecard family and the Magic Tower apparently have a cooperative relationship, but I doubt they’d let the head of one become a direct part of the other. That would sort of skew the power balance. Or something.”

  “Are the Aglecards actually that powerful?”

  “I guess so, yeah. There’s … a lot of stuff going on that I don’t understand quite well enough yet, either, but I just know that the family has their hands in basically … everything,” Ryan tried to explain, though he knew that it definitely wouldn’t help Mary truly understand. But since Ryan himself had no actual idea of how far the Aglecards’ influence stretched, there really was no way for him to properly explain it to his mother either.

  A few hours later, Ryan, his mother, and Runar headed back out to take a look at the rest of the stalls. The crowd that had gathered in front of Modak’s stall was still massive but had calmed down at least a little bit. Modak was taking a break, sitting in a chair in the back of the lot. Dozens of mages of the Tower had come by to question him about what he had done and how this process worked, and he had refused them all. Sure, he had told Runar, but it was easier to trust him not to misuse or steal that technology than it was to trust the mages currently working at the Tower.

  Either way, the biggest challenge was yet to come. Modak nervously checked his phone, biting his nails. He was suddenly so nervous that even Marge noticed.

  “What’s going on? Everything is going well here, so what’s with that face?” she asked, and Modak let out an awkward laugh.

  “I, well … My parents and siblings are coming by soon, and … I just don’t know what they’re going to think.” Modak rubbed his neck nervously. “My dad is honestly not a huge fan of magic. You know, just that old orcish mindset, I guess.”

  “Don’t worry; I understand. Historically, cyclopes haven’t been the most pro-magic either. When my parents learned that I was interested in magic engineering of all things, they weren’t all too happy about it. But at the end of the day, they understood. They saw my love and passion for it, and came through,” Marge explained, placing her large hand on the orc’s shoulder. “I’m sure if you show them that this is what you love, they will get it. Plus, my kids are coming through soon as well, and I can’t have my boss be so mopey, now, can I?” The cyclops slightly laughed, and Modak slowly nodded. He stood up from the chair and straightened the tie to the suit he was wearing.

  “You’re right. I’ll just show them everything and try to make sure they know that I really care about this.” Modak smiled lightly, and almost the moment he said so, he spotted a small group approaching. At the front stood his mother and father together, looking around like fish out of water. Behind them were Modak’s siblings as well as Liam. Liam and the twins had become friends at school, and the twins had invited Liam to join them for the day, apparently.

  Nervous, Modak moved toward them, forcing a smile onto his face. “Mom, Dad! I’m so happy you could come! Let me—”

  “What are you wearing?” Modak’s father looked him up and down with a slight scoff. “Why would you be wearing a suit? Did someone die?”

  “I’m just trying to look presentable, okay?” Modak tried not to drop his smile, even when he noticed his mother just roll her eyes at his father’s question.

  “So, what are you doing here, sweetheart? Are you selling something? Some kind of food?” his mother wondered, looking around. “Do we order through this tablet, or do we tell you?”

  “Order? M-Mom, no, I told you guys about this; I’m presenting the project I’ve been working on for the Magic Tower.”

  “Honey, I’m sorry, but I thought you were joking … I mean, you don’t even have mana, so how could you be working for the Magic Tower? Do you see how that’s a bit confusing?”

  Modak closed his eyes and took some deep breaths. “Yes, sure. But again, as you see, I’m in the Magic Tower’s area, so … yeah, I work for them. I can show you the rest of the proof later,” Modak explained, forcing his smile to stay on his face. Soon, his older sister came up to the table.